In Parliament After Hours: Tonks and Company in Muggle London...I will never fucking learn, Tonks told herself as she steered her newest Champion east on the flight down the river. Never eat sodding onion rings before a flyover. I've known since first year at Hogwarts that they go right through me. And good fucking British luck finding a WC open at this time of night! She gritted her teeth and tried by sheer force of will to keep her bowels in check. Mind over matter, or some such. Not exactly the most pleasant flyover she'd ever done, even allowing for the oppressive chill in the air.

Disillusioned, Tonks was joined on this trip by Hestia Jones and her squadron of Junior Aurors. They were on night-shift flyovers and inside inspections of Muggle government buildings in London, including Parliament and the High Court. The Prime Minister was vaguely aware of these infiltrations, having received a memo by owl post from Minister McGonagall some five months before; whether he remembered anything of it or not was questionable. Death-Eaters were said to be infiltrating the British government through blending into Muggle political circles and being appointed to posts as high-ranking as possible. The same thing was rumoured to be occurring in the United States government as well, the British and European baddies likely assuming that the current U.S. President wouldn't know a "Death-Eater" from Darth Vader. Death-Eaters gravitated toward centers of power like moths to a street lamp; and since the death of Lord Voldemort and subsequent fall of Bellatrix Black Lestrange (my Auntie Bella, would-be Dark Lady of Wizarding Britain, as Jovana once called her; well, so much for the Madwoman in the Manor...), they'd been left without a firm candidate for designated leader. Now, apparently swallowing their Muggle-hating pride, they were attempting to expand their influence into Muggle Europe through assimilation and infiltration into government ministries in that world.

And so Tonks, Hestia, Corvus Sawney, Jeri Khan-Creevey, Marcelene Thomas and Nathan Todd had been sent out with magical night-vision and sensing equipment geared for Dark Energy and Magical Signatures, on night-time flyovers identical to the ones they'd undertaken while Bellatrix had been still at large. An Auror's work is never done, even when the latest Dark-Powered threat seems to have been overcome.

The gothic spires of Parliament were coming up immediately on their right. First order of business: Tonks to apparate into a loo before something nasty had to be Scourgified.

Tonks wondered how Jovana and her lot were doing with their flyovers in Muggle Washington on the Night Ship. She hoped for their sakes that the old craft had a loo on board.

"Right, then", Remus assented. "In any case, our point in interrupting your fact-finding activities, ladies and gentlemen, is simply to advise that such investigations over at Thames House and Whitehall would probably be a better use of your time and energy." He was also looking around as if he would be happier in a pub right now. "However, you might want to bag all that for tonight, and owl Tarrah for warrants to check out our Muggle intelligence agencies and armed services. Not to mention the MagiVid wire services. I'm also puzzled as to why the Magical media seems to know more than the Ministry about Death-Eater schemes in the Middle East."

The Aurors looked around at each other. "Well...okay", Hestia assented. "Whitehall and the MI5 sound like a huge lot to start on at this time of night. We've already got rooms at the Leaky Cauldron to crash in, so I suppose we should head back there and owl reports back north of what we've learned on this search."

"And we need to thank you lot", Corvus broke in, "For upsetting the table a tad. You made a rather disturbing entrance, but no one got hurt, at least."

"But for fuck's sake, Remus, kindly don't do that again, unless you're being followed", Tonks implored her old friend. "I'm better than I look at wandless hexes."

As the Aurors gathered up their brooms and other gear to exit the old structure, Tonks ventured another glance across the room at one of their companions. There was that jabbing sensation in her chest, making her wince again.